Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude / And flew to the silence of sweet solitude.
He could not die when the trees were green, For he loved the time too well.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;... There to abide with my Creator, God.
The present is the funeral of the past, And man the living sepulchre of life.
Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn Her death-bed steeps in tears; to hail the May New blooming blossoms neath the sun are born, And all poor April's charms are swept away.
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; And e'en the dearest--that I love the best-- Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.